


Sunshine Facade

by baeconandeggs



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:11:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3993025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeconandeggs/pseuds/baeconandeggs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chanyeol is known as the happy virus, but when Baekhyun meets him, he starts to wonder if maybe that’s not a front for something broken underneath…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunshine Facade

**Author's Note:**

> I certainly hope this is close to what you were thinking of. I know when I read the prompts, this story wrote itself almost immediately. It was really my honor to get to work with this prompt. Thank you so much! xoxo

“He’s going to murder me, Baekhyun, you just don’t understand.”

Baekhyun glances over, tossing the dark brown waves of his soft fringe from his eyes with a smirk pulling his flawless features. His friend at his side rakes his fingers through permed red tinted curls with an over-dramatic groan. While he wanted to be sympathetic to the man, his boyfriend getting mad over a bad grade seemed like a bit of a personal problem. And in truth, he wasn’t entirely sold that Junmyeon could be scary. He seems like the type to be perpetually understanding. Though one certainly would have to be understanding dating a diva like Jongdae, his personality ever-vibrant and his very aura a bright and loud thing that consumed a room. He dimpled his cheeks when he smiled and had no shame in a hearty laugh, but that held no weight today. No, today, the man at his side is downtrodden at best and the pull of his frown left Baekhyun unsure that there would be anything to be said to cheer him up. 

“Jongdae, this isn’t like you. Cheer up. It’s just one bad grade.” He offers, feeling that he probably lacks conviction in the sentiment. 

“It’s not just one grade… I promised him…” Jongdae trails off, and Baekhyun watches the man’s eyes scanning the cement walkway as though it offered some explanation to provide. But his gaze, his thoughts, are both too far off for him to make much of an intrusion. 

“He’s not going to be too upset, I’m sure. Kim Jongdae, he’s clearly head over heels about you. Look at the giant diamond stud in your ear. Nobody buys that kind of ostentatious gift for a person they’ll break up with over a single test grade.” 

While both of them knew this to be true, Jongdae’s mood doesn’t seem to improve by much as he hooks an arm with Baekhyun’s and continues marching his navy blue and white creepers forward, his blue and red plaid pants cutting off high water at the ankles, his perfectly tailored pastel blue button down tucked in at his narrow hips the way he’d started doing more and more recently. Recently, of course, being since he decided that he was going to only date men, and by men, he meant Kim Junmyeon, 2 years ago. It had sort of thrown Baekhyun for a loop at the time, having not really had a friend just up and decide to be gay before, and he certainly didn’t know how to him help adjust to that because, Baekhyun had always considered himself to be in favor of men. So hearing his good friend ask him how he’d know if his frequent erections for a guy friend were more than just the fact that he hadn’t been laid in a while was a little startling. But now, the warmth of his friend’s body pressed into his side at the beginning of summertime heat, he’s glad to have someone like him. He needed a companion in university to fight it out with when the getting gets hard, and Kim Jongdae is there through thick and thin.

“Come on, I’ll buy you some tea and macarons. You love the pink macarons the best at 12th street cafe, come on, I’ll take you.” Baekhyun pulls his friend toward the coffee shop they frequent and Jongdae gives a half-hearted smile with a nod of his head.

He wishes there was something more he could do. This test was harder than he expected. And while he wasn’t about to gloat about the fact that he made a solid B while Jongdae pulled a low C on the high school scale, he was proud of the achievement. He opens his mouth to say something more when Jongdae’s phone starts playing a girl group song about hot weather and skimpy clothes which he thought to be especially ironic since he doesn’t like women these days.

“Hey Chanyeol.”

Baekhyun feels his eyes rolling before he even realizes what he’s doing. Park Chanyeol, nicknamed “Happy Virus Park” or “Happy Virus Yeol”, is one of the popular guys on campus. He’s not popular because he’s the most handsome guy on campus, though he does have his looks going for him. His height and that ever-present grin are not only iconic around their university, but also quite a sight to behold. He floats from group to group, he’s the kind of person who’s nice to everyone and does it in the most annoying way. You can’t hate him because it’s not a fake kindness, but you’re stifled by it because it’s unnatural for someone to be that pleasant all the time. 

“Nothing, I just completely bombed my Anthro 202 test from Monday and I know Jun is going to have my head about it. I promised him I would do well on it and… Yeah… It’s pretty bad…”

Baekhyun watches the way Jongdae’s eyes turn down with his regret.

“Yeah, I know but I promised him—“

And just like that, Jongdae’s cheeks snap into a giant grin, his eyes pulling into amused crescents and his features touched with the loveliest shade of pink.

“It’s not that simple! I can’t just spring a blow job in the middle of getting scolded!”

Baekhyun looks away too quickly and feels his eyes widen, his lips curling into a smile against his will. “Chanyeol! That’s not going to solve—You’re so—No! I am not going to—“ And just like that, his friend’s smile is lasting and his stress seems to ease once more with another hard laugh.

Baekhyun feels his chest lighten at the sight of his friend being put at ease, what must it be like to have that effect on someone? To know exactly what they need and to be able to shoulder part of their burden…

“When is it?” Jongdae asks casually, checking his wrist watch with another laugh.

There’s something about how easily Chanyeol is able to make people feel better, especially his own good friend at a time like this, that makes Baekhyun almost resentful of the man’s virus abilities. But there was something more to it, something about it that always seems a little off. 

“I’ll ask Junmyeon if we can come. Maybe he’ll be too distracted between getting head and going out to be angry at me.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes with full consciousness of his actions this time and keeps strolling towards their afternoon tea spot, passing by the grassy hill where a photography student is taking snapshots of a man playing the guitar under a tree.

The first time he ever saw Chanyeol was on this very hill leading towards the health sciences building at their university. There were a group of girls practicing cheer leading on the grass, men gathered around cheering on the cheer leaders in a sort of uncomfortable show of chauvinism that one would think was long eradicated. And beyond that a man was racing down the red tiled hill with his green backpack smacking hard against the center of his back with each long stride of his lean legs in a sort of galloping motion. The sight was both cool and comical until it took a turn for the hilarious when the man tumbled forward and ended up flat on his ass. Instinctively, Baekhyun felt himself step towards the man, worried irrationally for the towering man. It was something interesting and frightening to watch, like giraffe falling down. But the man sat up and shook out his head like a wet dog, looking more like his brain rattled in his head than his feet slipped out from under him. The crowds passing stopped to offer assistance and many started to laugh. Automatically defensive, Baekhyun’s blood started to boil when suddenly, the man on the ground gets up with some effort and bursts out laughing, holding his side and taking off his backwards baseball cap.

“That was crazy!” He sings out. “But look, now I have authentic ripped jeans!”

Baekhyun scoffs and turns away from the sight of the pleasant exchange, bored.

“Yeah, and authentic blood stains. Your knee is bleeding, dumbass.” He mumbled to himself at the time, but he glanced over his shoulder to see the man grinning and talking to the people around him, putting his Red snapback firmly in place again ontop of his head.

Happy Virus. Nobody can be happy all the time. That’s just not natural. 

 

He’s not sure how he gets talked into it, but something in the way Jongdae pleads makes Baekhyun feel like he needs to at least do this much for the man. And when he arrives at the theater that night, Junmyeon is lecturing Jongdae still about his grade and Baekhyun sees the relief in his eyes as the polite boyfriend feels obligated to abruptly end the conversation in present company. 

“Hello Baekhyun.” Junmyeon says turning to kindly give him a smile, extending a ticket to him.

“Hey, sorry I’m late…” He mumbles, glancing between the usually harmonious couple as he feels the tension in the air. “The… the bus got stuck in traffic.”

“No, it’s fine!” Jongdae says too loudly, and Baekhyun gives him a slightly confused look. 

“Uh, yeah. This is going to be great!” He says trying to mirror the man’s enthusiasm.

But there’s something apologetic in the way Jongdae looks at Junmyeon as he reaches for his hand, and something reluctant in the way Junmyeon squeezes his hand in reply. As if they were promising to continue the conversation later.

“So, what are we seeing again tonight?” Junmyeon asks, his expression past the argument as he quickly tries to resolve the tension.

“Much ado about nothing. It’s a play by Shakespeare. Chaneyeol is going to be in it as someone named Claudio and he was worried nobody would come to see it because it’s not a well known play.”

Junmyeon seems to accept this and nods his head towards Baekhyun.

“Are you a fan of this play?”

Baekhyun hadn’t known a damn thing about the play before Jongdae invited him, but he had done a quick search of it online. Much ado about nothing, according to wikipedia, is one of Shakespeare’s best comedies because “it combines elements of robust hilarity with more serious meditations on honor, shame, and court politics.” It stems from the plot revolving around two couples, one set tricked into confessing that they love one another rather than loathe one another, and the other set broken apart, temporarily by rumored adultery. 

“Yes… It’s pretty funny.” Baekhyun comments.

“I didn’t know that you liked theater.” Comes Junmyeon’s surprised reply as he looks through the pamphlet handed over to him as they enter into the auditorium. 

Baekhyun can count on one hand the number of times he’s come to a play and 3 of them were mandatory school events in grade school. But he lets it go with a slight bob of his head and gets into the feel of the environment. The theater is loud and dimly lit, the excitement in the air is palpable. People are busy bustling around with their programs talking about the cast and the story line. There is an excitement to the gathered room and Baekhyun wishes silently that he was more approachable about the subject. But sadly, he’s here to play third wheel for his favorite couple who are apparently bickering. And of course there’s that added bonus where Jongdae offered to buy him dinner after which didn’t hurt the cause.

He feels himself start to lighten up as they take their seats, two rows from the front, centerstage, it just is so typical that Chanyeol would gift them free tickets with an excellent view of the stage. Happy virus, making everyone catch his disease. But if he has to be here, he would want to be at the front where the action is tangible. As the floor lights dim and Jongdae and Junmyeon’s cutesy back and forth about the last play they saw together is cut off, Baekhyun relaxes into the cool air and dark atmosphere. This would be almost pleasant and lovely were it not so crowded. 

He was not expecting to search so hard for Chanyeol on the stage, or to be so surprised when he found him. Standing with a shirt loose and unbuttoned, a peasant blouse showing off his lean chest, a brown belt slung across his hips and skin tight pants slunk into heavy boots, he looked more the part of a sailor than a shakespearian actor. And for what it was worth, his dark hair falling elegantly and purposefully forward with heavy stage makeup around his eyes made him instantly the heart throb of the show, and judging from the sighs and cheers from the crowd when he spoke, the whole room could feel it. And maybe he’s never given him enough credit for this side of himself. Maybe Baekhyun has only seen him as a limited person, a person who smiles about everything, rather than as a multi-dementional human being.   
And while he had felt slightly uncomfortable being a third-wheel on this “can’t-fight-with-Baekhyun-around” threesome outing, he quickly forgot the people sitting at his side, forgot the people in the rows in front and behind him as he watched Chanyeol on stage and it is the full range of emotions present on stage that he has not ever seen before that leaves Baekhyun’s mouth parted and mind blank.

“O, what men dare do!” Exclaimed the man atop the stage, face contorted with anger. “What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what they do!”

Baekhyun wonders if Chanyeol feels a particular connection to this character at all, standing with every bit the conviction of a man betrayed by his love rather than that of a thespian painted to the skin of another. He holds the power of his own lines with delivery so fluid that he wonders if he’ll ever be able to get this image from his mind.  
The sweat on his brow glistens so perfectly that fractals of light caught, sparkle as he moves. The hard stage lights pour heat on the actors, melting their makeup and wetting their shirts but he gives no thought to the haggard illusion crumbling. He only focusses on the man he thought he had pieced together up until this day, who he now seems to know so little.

While it may just be a symptom of being on stage with a crowd you cannot see from your height and the lights, Baekhyun couldn’t help but feel the shock of electricity that the man’s eyes sent through him when he could almost swear their eyes would meet. And their eyes met a number of times. But that, he was sure was his own imagination. 

 

The performances warranted a standing ovation, but Baekhyun knew he shot from his chair too confidently when the time came around for having little to no better understanding of the plot, having been entirely focussed on a single member on stage. It is perhaps because of this that Baekhyun can see Chanyeol’s subtle change in expression, the way his features tense ever so slightly as he gives a smile to the crowd of people and takes his final bows with the cast. His eyes are unfocussed as he looks out, not searching for anything, but simply glazed over in thought. As they go to greet the man after the performance, he finds that up close, the man is much taller than his long limbs have afforded Baekhyun the estimate for. While he smells almost misty and is drenched with sweat, makeup running around his eyes ever so slightly, he still looks like the most handsome man in the room. 

This point well illustrated by the hordes of women who flock to him, looking to ask him about his plans for the evening, about his relationship status, flooding him with compliments. It seems almost pointless to do the same thing, but he hates to admit that he’s curious about the answers Chanyeol keeps shirking off too. He takes pictures with the fans and Baekhyun watches with arguably too much investment for them to be mere strangers. 

Jongdae’s loud cheers bring the tall man’s attention over and his eyes fall upon Baekhyun softly, as though they were not strangers at all. And they are of course, but he doesn’t point that out when the man comes over. He doesn’t stir discomfort into the air, but rather allows Chanyeol to converse amiably with the two men he’s with and Baekhyun admires his height, the sweat on his skin and the appeal of that too big grin up close once more. 

“Baekhyun here is a fan of the play.” Junmyeon says to include the shortest of the group into conversation.

Chanyeol looks pleasantly surprised by this information and turns his mega watt grin over to blind Baekhyun for a moment.

“Really? I hope we did it justice. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sold on being Claudio, I wanted to be Don John the bastard.”

Baekhyun’s brows raise, brain whirring through the wikipedia notes he skimmed.

“The… the bad guy? You wanted to play the evil one?”

“I think misunderstood sounds better.” Chanyeol replies on a shrug, winking.

Baekhyun is illogically flustered by the suave motion and for just a moment, his thoughts are chaotic with the promises and ideas of what this could mean. 

“Hey, I have to get back to doing this whole after show socialization thing to get funding. Gotta schmooze. But, if you want…” He pulls out his phone and opens up his messenger app, flashing Baekhyun the display. “I’ll give you my Katalk information and we can talk about this more later.”

Baekhyun pulls out his phone and trades information in a half-dazed state, unsure when or where he went so drastically wrong with his life that he would be sucked into the beautiful thespian’s act like the rest of the blind sheep. 

“I’ll see you around Byun.” The man says leaning in to give Jongdae and Junmyeon hugs with parting words and more compliments. 

Here are things that Baekhyun noticed from the meeting; 1. Chanyeol was genuinely kind when he spoke, he held no ulterior motive to his words but to be gentle and respectful, 2. He smiles softly sometimes, where his lips are pulled thin and his round eyes crow at the corners and it feels like your cotton candy heart is melting, and 3. He teases with thoughtful details, retaining small but important snapshots of a person that he picks up on and brings to surface for light jest. 

Lying in bed that night, Baekhyun felt that his brain was fuller with questions, with theories, with ideas and all of them were rooted in Park Chanyeol. It was as though he knew the man, not for a few moments after the play but for years. His heart feels heavy under the weight of it as he stares up at the ceiling, unsure whether he’s tired or just impatient to see the man once more.

The happy virus thing… it makes sense. It makes more sense than he’d care to admit. Chanyeol does bring happiness and it is a contagious thing, but he doesn’t believe that Chanyeol is as happy as he puts off to be. He doesn’t believe the lost expression on his face staring out into the crowd is as much of a passing expression as he may have previously chalked it up to be. Rather than Chanyeol being so vapid and unflinching, he was starting to think that Chanyeol was a normal guy who has a gift of making people smile and used it to hide something he didn’t want to admit to. 

He grabs his phone and holds it up above his head, watching for a minute until the time ticks away another 60 seconds. 

“You were really great tonight!” He sends in a message before he could really find reason not to say what he meant to say all along.

There isn’t much of a wait before the response chimes in the form of an emoticon, the crying with joy cat would have been so obnoxious from anyone else, but it feels strangely right and distant coming from Chanyeol. 

Chanyeol is playful but distant. It’s fitting in it’s own way, and Baekhyun drifts off to sleep mulling this over, haunted with the image of the man on stage.

 

Before there was a road block in his mind that preoccupied all of his thoughts like a sickness, there was Zhang Yixing. He’s the cool, relaxed type, who’s down to earth but snarky personality mirrored Baekhyun’s in many ways but he carried himself with a bit more compassion. The two made plans to meet at the bookstore, to do research for their anthropology project together, though the grades would not be counted as one. Despite his pleas for the man to let him pay for his own coffee, Yixing purchases the java for him, and Baekhyun thanks him shyly. Fixing has never made much secret about his feelings. From the first time he met Baekhyun, he’s been asking to buy him dinner, to take him to the movies, to sit down and talk together. And Baekhyun was almost inclined to say yes to the proposition but for the fact that his view of Yixing was impressed, interested but inadequately passionate. There isn’t enough affection to warrant such a reciprocation as Yixing puts forth, and it feels too much like leading the man on. 

“This isn’t a date, Yixing.” Baekhyun says coolly as his eyes roll back with appreciation of the raspberry white chocolate mocha java freeze. 

“This is definitely not a date,” The man replies with a wink. “My standard of dates is not so ordinary. This is just a friendly thing between friends.”

“Friendly thing between friends.” Baekhyun agrees, taking another sip with a sheepish smile. “Thank you.”

“Stop flirting with me, Byun. Now about our research paper...”

Baekhyun starts out with the best intentions, listening to his friend’s ideas but somewhere before the mention of Dr. Ian Condry’s essay on hiphop culture in Japan and the documentary watched on the annual mardi gras bead manufacturing in china, Baekhyun’s attention is pulled by a forest green book cover with golden lettering. The word Hamlet stands out in a sea of books and once more Baekhyun’s thoughts are tangled—infected—with thoughts of the happy virus. 

He excuses himself, trying to be discreet about not paying attention and walks to take hold of the book. Though the logical train of thought leapt from Hamlet to Shakespeare to Much ado about nothing to Chanyeol, he was aware that it was an undercurrent all along that traveled his subconscious even before the book caught his eye. 

He wanders to the section where the classics were displayed. Famous titles lined up one after another. The legends all in a row. Classics by who’s standard? But classics none the less. Moby Dick, The great Gatsby, Clockwork Orange, Madame Bovary, The portrait of Dorian Gray, Slaughterhouse five, Animal Farm, The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet… There in the roped off section of plays worth noting alongside a compilation of works by George Bernard Shaw, was a collection of books with mismatched covers. The works of William Shakespeare. 

Baekhyun had never considered himself to be a theater person, nor had he any interest in Elizabethan literature, but he picks up the book form of Much Ado About Nothing. 

And while he sips absently on his coffee, taking measured sips like a professional to avoid a brain freeze, he flips through a few pages and realizes he has no idea what’s being said.

But none the less, it feel wrong to put it down. So he walks to the counter and spends the 6 bucks buying the paperback novel, a chore to decode later as a pet project. 

Fixing, despite his promise that he’s aware they aren’t dating previously, is waiting with a list of reasons why it would be a good idea if they did date when Baekhyun arrives back at the table.

“We’re compatible emotionally, we have similar grades, we are amiable, and I won’t ever complain about you being lost in your own thoughts.”

Baekhyun laughs lightly, rolling his eyes. Though he hears himself promising to consider those valid reasons to date, he knows that there’s nothing about the idea or the rational provided that tempts him. 

Fixing is a good guy, a handsome guy with money and the promise of endless fun dates. But it’s not right. It doesn’t fit. And as he gives his best fake smile to cheer up the man rejected across the table, he wonders if this is the feeling Chanyeol lives with being so happy all the time. Did he feel this hollow every time he smiled just to make someone else happy? He pulls his phone out and opens the messaging app, staring at the two line conversation that consisted of one compliment and one emoticon. No. No need to embarrass himself by trying to talk to him again. 

He reaches out to Jongdae instead, finding the man’s quick phone messaging reflex buzz a response to his phone in seconds stating that he and his lover were busy buying things for their get together.

Baekhyun goes home alone without attempting to make plans with anyone else after that, after all, he’s not a man who needs to fill his silences with meaningless words and false smiles.

He hears the man before he sees him.

Baekhyun had been attempting to be cool about their distance and his slight obsessing over the past few days but standing on the outside of the cafeteria, Baekhyun’s attention is pulled by the thundering laugh and his eyes search frantically for the owner like habit. He’s wearing a tee shirt with skinny jeans, green backpack slung over one shoulder, a tray of food in one hand and he’s talking to a group of people so casually that you’d think they were family. And maybe they were for all Baekhyun knows, but for the fact that his face said they were close but something was amiss. Baekhyun has decided, quite independently of Chanyeol, what his personality is really like, a concoction that must be entirely fiction, based on no solid evidence, but he was certain Chanyeol was being fake with those he stood with. 

The thing about their university cafeteria is that none of the people eating here are kids anymore, technically, they’re all adults over the age of 18, and yet the childish meal plans offered are various forms of gourmet lunchables. Sandwiches, mac and cheese, spaghetti, and meat loafs. It’s like they’ve graduated from one institution of learning where they’re coddled and treated like children with the looming threat of adulthood to graduate to the next level of learning institution where they’re treated like children who should be adults but can’t be trusted as such and so are not treated as such.

Amid posters urging students to make healthy eating choices were plastic pre-made lunches with slimy salads and hot bars with pizzas. University life was much like high school life but with more independence to make the bad decisions already made in the years before with less immediate consequence. 

He studies the man standing with a yellow lunch tray in hand and notes the wrap sandwich with a smirk. So Chanyeol is the kind of man who likes sandwich wraps, he muses, and the image of Chanyeol wrapping his mouth around the cylindrical object has Baekhyun planting both hands over his flaming cheeks with an embarrassed shake off of his own perversion.

“Snap out of it you pervert…” He whispers to himself, feeling like a lunchtime sexual predator who should be escorted from the room before he did more damage to his own image of himself.

And in that fleeting moment where he debates leaving, he meets eyes with the owner of the sexualized food and they hold their expressions in place without making move. It’s Chanyeol who waves at Baekhyun, and for some reason, without any acknowledgement from Baekhyun at all, decided that he should excuse himself from the group to run across the corridor to stand next to him. He thinks that Chanyeol looks secretly relieved to be able to leave the group of people, though they all seemed to protest it greatly. 

“Don’t you ever get tired of being so positive?” Baekhyun asks in place of greeting.

Chanyeol’s smile doesn’t falter, the curve of his smile framed by a dimple that Baekhyun thought to be especially endearing. 

“You get used to it. You should try it out.”

He doesn’t want to try being positive, and there’s an unspoken understanding that Chanyeol was aware of this and was in no way pushing it upon him, which is altogether irritating. What he does want is to figure out what’s going on inside this man’s head, a mystery that he finds to be most interesting. He could have taken into consideration the possibility that his interest is founded in this one aspect of the man’s personality. That he was not romantically pulled by him but rather, scientifically intrigued by his personality. It could have been argued that this was nothing but anthropological and sociological research, but for the way his fingers nervously fiddled with the stack of books in his arms, picking at the base of a textbook absently while he stared up at the man.

And impulsively, acting as usual before really weighing the situation, Baekhyun blurts out an invitation for coffee, and Chanyeol’s brows lift slowly in response. It would be impossible to identify the exact moment in his dark round eyes when he decided that he would give Baekhyun a response, for the time between the words coming from Baekhyun’s lips and the reply slipping from Chanyeol’s were agonizingly teasing and expressionless. Chanyeol reaches forward and ruffles Baekhyun’s hair with one big hand and laughs lightly, a requirement for him, like he needed to meet a daily quota. 

Baekhyun notes that the wrap is a spinach pita wrap with tomato, cheese and turkey inside. His chips, unopened on the plate are baked soy sauce and cheese flavored. The amount of distasteful that looked was almost felt in his stomach just observing the black bag of chips, however he buys the same thing from the cafeteria after Chanyeol promises to message him after class. Sitting cross legged under a tree in the courtyard, tree bark stabbing his back through his thin bottom shirt, Baekhyun digs into the bag of chips, finding the flavor combination to be oddly delightful if a bit salty. And with his eyes closed, he allows his perversion to take over for just a moment more as he wallows in the idea that Chanyeol’s mouth probably tastes like this right now. 

He knows he should be bothered that he’s thinking about these kinds of things, but sexualizing a stranger and imaging a relationship with them is only unhealthy if the person in question is out of reach, right? If they’re close by, it’s written off as an infatuation. This is merely an infatuation.

A harmless, innocent, little, infatuation.

 

It’s wrong, and he knows it. Baekhyun knows what he’s doing is wrong, and he wishes to God that he could stop this. But he’s doing this for science, he promises, and he watches the tall man shift his weight from foot to foot. Forcing him to wait is a little bit of a dick move, and sure, there’s a chance he’ll get caught watching from across the street and be yelled at, but isn’t that part of the reason to do it? It’s a social experiment of sorts and more importantly, he’s fascinated by the expression on the man’s face right now. He looks neither upset nor happy. He’s resigned as he stands there, looking worried. He pulls out his phone for what can only be the tenth time and this time, he slides his fingers over the screen and momentarily, Baekhyun feels his phone vibrate. 

Nervously, expecting the worse, he pulls the phone out and looks down at the message bubble and his brain clears of all other thoughts for a moment. 

“Hey, if you can’t make it, I’ll understand.”

From anyone else on the planet, Baekhyun would have been irritated by the message. He would have felt something like resentment in the slightly condescending tone he’d mentally read it with and the “guilt-tripping” would have made him abandon plans to spite them. But he’s already brain washed to Park Chanyeol’s disposition, and at once he feels genuine regret. He uses down the stairs and out of the store he was posted watch in and races out into the street. He jogs across the crosswalk and down the short ways through sprinkled shoppes and grabs onto the sleeve of the man’s shirt.

“Sorry! I’m sorry I’m late! Please don’t be mad!” He blurts out, out of breath from his panic to get to Chanyeol, as if he had threatened to leave in a fit of anger rather than texted with non-obligation and understanding. 

“It happens.” Is Chanyeol’s soft reply as he studies Baekhyun’s panicked expression.

Maybe Baekhyun’s been obsessing over this man’s face too much recently to be rational, but he would swear to anyone that the expression touching the man’s face is different now than it was earlier. He seems calm, like his previous anxious shifting about and nervously checking his phone was long behind him, and his concentration is off, distant, much the way it was when he gave his final bow at the play.

“Are you okay?” He asks, walking at the man’s side, swinging his arms like a child, feeling at unrest with his thoughts being equal parts guilty and happy to be with the man.

“Are you worried about me?” Chanyeol teases, narrowing his eyes at Baekhyun.

“Worried about happy-virus losing his happy? Absolutely, I’d become the school piranha if I caused such a travesty.”

That’s how it happened. Baekhyun saw definitive proof of a change in the man’s expression. A slight change in his facade that was not just speculation, not just made up by his obsessing over the man like he wasn’t so much as a real person. He kept the grin in place but rolled his eyes and Baekhyun’s heart let in his chest, a sort of involuntary response, he could get addicted to. 

“When did you start acting?” Baekhyun asks.

Chanyeol’s expression is still and composed as he looks over, no pretense of emotion other than the ever-present lift of his lips.

“When I was about 14 I guess. I didn’t know what to do with my summer vacation and I ended up going to the local community center to swim. There was a post for a local theater troupe doing some little known play and I decided that I really didn’t have anything else better to do. They weren’t spectacular, but they were entertaining. And when I saw the sign up for the school production of Aladdin that fall, I decided to give it a go.”

Baekhyun shoulders Chanyeol with a smirk as they come to a stop at the coffee shop.

“And the rest was history? They saw your talent, they were won over by that charismatic smile, and you were the star of every show since?”

He doesn’t reply immediately and Baekhyun’s curiosity peaks with every hold as the man debates his responses.

“No.” He says, ruffling Baekhyun’s hair again and stepping into the cafe.

“No? So you didn’t get the role of aladdin? So… the genie? Jafar…? Oh my god, please say that there are pictures of 14 year old Chanyeol out there dressed up in the part of Jasmine.”

Chanyeol’s bark of laughter startles a few customers who look over frightened first and enchanted second. 

“No. I didn’t get any parts. I was a complete mess on my first audition and I screwed it all up. Couldn’t remember any lines or anything, plus is was a musical and I was too nervous to sing.”

Baekhyun’s perverted inner fanboy’s wilted hopes was only just visible on his face, noted in the way Chanyeol touches his finger to the corner of Baekhyun’s brow and pushes his prying eyes away.

“This is truly heartbreaking news.” Baekhyun says with every intention of teasing the lumbering man blushing before him.

“Yes, well, there’s just not a Jasmine costume in my size anyway.”

“I’m sure we can find amazonian woman costumes.”

“Give it up, little Byun.” He mumbles, covering his face as he approaches the counter to order.

He doesn’t try to buy a coffee for Baekhyun, and this is completely normal and acceptable, except that on some level, he knew he had wanted that. If anyone was going to play boyfriend, Baekhyun wanted it to be Park Chanyeol.

Seated at a corner table, book bags at their feet, coffees in hand—one hot and one iced—the two conversed delicately at first, and then naturally once more. And it felt easy being close to him, watching his expressions as he spoke, gauging the way he looked down and met eyes, longing for the small extensions of skinship when they were far and few between. 

“So when did you decide that you were into forensic anthropology anyway?”

Baekhyun leans back in his chair with a lift of his shoulder.

“When was the exact moment, strike of the clock? I don’t know. But I’m interested in the different cultures and regions and how they shape people physically and socially. The fact that there are definite traits to people in certain countries that are unique from those in a bordering country just miles away is fascinating to me. Why is a French woman’s pout so iconic but Spanish women’s pouts not appreciated? How is it that speaking a certain language for decades can shape a person’s face in a certain way that make your features unique to the place you were born? To be able to look at bones and read there what kinds of sports a person may have been active in, or what race they are… I just found it to be endlessly fascinating.”

“You’re endlessly fascinating.” Chanyeol replies and Baekhyun’s eyes widen, reading into it too much, feeling it as flirtation rather than just pleasantry. “You’ve been studying that since you were in high school?”

“Yeah, but I really started picking up on it when I moved here for Uni. University classes are much more detailed in terms of what they offer and what I can choose to be in. As long as I maintain my grades, they’ll pay for me to learn.” He says, trying not to seem like he was bragging, but feeling proud of himself none the less.

“When did you move here?”

“2 years ago, after graduating from High school. Like literally the next week.”

Chanyeol swirls the coffee mug in hand and smirks to himself.

“You’re just a noob in town.”

“2 years is no small amount of time, thank you. And how long have you been around here?”

“Since I was 14.” He says and downs the rest of his coffee in one shot. 

Baekhyun pulls his phone out and unlocks the screen, unsure why there was tension in the response.

“What happened when you were 14? Why did you move here and spend your summer bored, watching plays with nothing better to do?”

Chanyeol sets the coffee mug back down and spins it around on it’s saucer slowly, not glancing at Baekhyun. One could have interpreted it as rude, or like the hadn’t heard the question, but rather it was more like he simply had to find the words to describe it. Baekhyun taps at his phone as he waits for a response and glances back up at the man after a moment, afraid he’d ruined the mood. Chanyeol’s text tone goes off and he pulls out his phone and grins up at Baekhyun as he reads the message.

“You don’t have to sugar coat it. You can just tell me.” It reads and Baekhyun sets his phone back down with what he hopes is an approachable face.

“There’s nothing to sugar coat. My mother left to pursue her dreams, my Father and I moved here to pursue a new life.”

And that response was a sugar-coated one, but he accepts it without prying further for now. Because there was something in the way he wove those words with so much care that Baekhyun knew there would someday be more to tell. And he didn’t plan on sabotaging his chances at hearing the about the other side of that coin.

 

Junmyeon’s dinner parties were a thing of legend. The man prepared for the events like he was hosting over hip socialites for an evening worthy of press photos. There was always an ambiance of dim lights and smooth jazzy music playing. The alcohol was poured by the bottle and the food was never in short supply. The semi annual evening event was that of local fame, and it was folklore that he prepared financially for these occasions with secret contracts with different companies, as if any rich man’s son could warrant that luxury. But it was true that there were entire hashtags dedicated to the event on instagram and the list of pictures snapped there were worth swiping up a screen for. The decor of the apartment was the ever impressive sensual hues of burgundy, brandy, chocolate and cream. Fixtures that were both classic and detailed paired with modern sleek designs made the time warp of eclectic pieces around a very unique and distinguishable landmark. 

And passing through the clusters of people socializing, Baekhyun realizes just how socially inept he must look, never holding more than three lines of conversation with any given person before growing bored and abandoning them to find something worthy of holding his attention. Usually that meant dissecting the art that Junmyeon had on display trying to psychoanalyze the perfectionist that he loved so much. Today he found that there was a new painting in the hallway of two lizards. One upside down, painted in green, the other right side up, pained in magenta. The green lizard was in a sky of pale lime with white clouds while the magenta was hidden amongst sky blue blades of grass. The painting itself was no more than the side of a box of cereal and yet, the image posed so many questions. A normal color for a lizard is green, and yet it’s the one hung precariously in the sky like an illusion, and a magenta lizard seems very childlike and imaginative, and yet that is the one wading through grass. The grass that should be green is intact topsy turvey with the skies above and Baekhyun is certain he’s missing obvious points on this painting but he begins to feel dizzy spinning the colors right side up and upside down in his mind and abandons the masterpiece with a shake of his head and a few posited blinks of his narrowed eyes.

Making his way further down the hall, he comes upon the kitchen, and seeing Jongdae through the crevice in the door, he approaches with intent to thank him for the invitation when he hears Junmyeon’s voice.

“Jongdae, you’re avoiding the question again.”

“I’m not avoiding it, Junnie, I’m simply preparing more meals for our guests.”

There is the appreciation you have for a couple from afar and then there is the appreciation you have for a couple when you know their inner workings. A surface couple and a scuba couple. Once couple is all surface and no depth, the other is all depth, skimming surface only to show their face before returning to the depths for ever deeper exploration of the unknown.

“Kim Jongdae, there is enough cheese in that living room to kill a small population of lactose intolerant wine critiques, you can spare a few minutes to tell me why I’m having to tip toe around you when it comes to something as important as your future.”

Jongdae doesn’t stop slicing the Saint-Andre cheese and setting it atop imported crackers.

“You want to do this right now? With guests in the other room?”

“Well, we’ve had weeks to talk about this but you keep putting it off, now finals are fast approaching and you’re still lallygagging around with your school priorities. So you name the time, love, and I’ll sit with you and we’ll talk. But if you can’t decide on a time…” Junmyeon comes up behind his boyfriend and places his hands on the man’s shoulders with a gentle rub. “Then at least tell me why you don’t want to talk about it… if this isn’t what you want…”

Jongdae pretends to hack away at Junmyeon’s fingers with the very real knife in his hand but neither seem to think this is unusual. 

“Stop saying things like that just to have a pity party. You’re not getting out of this relationship that easily, Junmyeon.”

“Well then talk to me. I just want to see you succeed.” He says and nuzzles his nose between Jongdae’s shoulder blades. 

Baekhyun takes a long sip of his wine, feeling nosey but fascinated by the exchange like he was catching a prime time show. Jongdae stops his cutting and Junmyeon lowers his hands to hold Jongdae’s hips in place. 

“Talk to me.” He pleads.

Jongdae reaches for the man’s hand and strokes over his fingers.

“I’ve just been distracted this semester. Please don’t be cross, Junmyeon. I want to succeed too. But my thoughts have been s scattered with my family situation. My parents don’t have nearly the obstacles or challenges to face that we do and after all these years, they’ve given up. They were happy like us once too…”

Baekhyun excuses himself with that confession and draws a line that should have been guarded 15 minutes prior. But the words do harbor some interest for him to go over in his own thoughts. What is happiness really? He belittles Chanyeol’s attempts to be a people-pleaser with his superficial shows of it, and what his best friends have is no doubt some variant of the emotion, but what is it really? Theres an entire room full of people he can approach with the question just a few feet away but instead of heading back towards the party, he lingers in the hall leading towards the balcony for a few more minutes, deciding that wading through a dozen hipster comments on what society deems to be happiness versus true human contentment would really only dampen his mood. Maybe happiness is a fleeting thing, swept by winds and carried off as quickly as it’s realized, or maybe it can be a constant state that blocks out other emotions with enough will power. The doorbell rings, a sound almost faint over the den of the gathering but Jongdae comes running from the kitchen and disappears around the corner to go let in more guests. While he sneaks into the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of the reserve Torres Sangre de Toro Garnacha wine Junmyeon had imported in from Catalunya, he simultaneously feels a tightening in his belly as Jongdae’s jovial laughter can be heard from the other room. The only person who can turn Jongdae’s mood around so quickly is the one person he was doing so well not obsessing over tonight. It doesn’t take long after before the man comes around the corner with the tall actor in tow, walking easily into the kitchen to greet the other host. Junmyeon abandons his work slicing cheese where Jongdae left off to greet him with a hug.

“It’s great that you could make it. How was the final performance tonight?”

Baekhyun remains unnoticed as he hides at the entrance with the bottle of wine held to his chest. Chanyeol’s response is amiable as usual and of course, that only serves to spark Baekhyun’s desire to break his winning streak of keeping distance and spoil himself by basking in the sound of the man’s voice. He doesn’t fail to catch the way the man glosses over an apparent wardrobe malfunction by one of his cast mates and grins at the man’s insistence on tying everything up with a neat ribbon. 

“Do you major in silver linings or something?” He pipes up and the three look over at once with matching expressions.

“Jeeze, Byun. You tiny little punk. I didn’t even see you there.” Jongdae says with a snort of laughter.

But Baekhyun is focussed on the actor in his presence, who’s face is marred temporarily with an unnamed emotion that he desperately needed title to.

“Byun… Baekhyun…” He whispers with the faintest touch of amusement.

“What’s with that expression? Do you not want to see me? Do you want me to leave?” Baekhyun asks with every intention of it being a joke, but Chanyeol just shakes his head, ruffling Baekhyun’s hair as he passes by, mumbling something about grabbing a drink.

Baekhyun holds out the bottle of wine as the man passes by but the motion goes unnoticed in his hurry to excuse himself.

“What the hell did you do to the kid? He’s never acted like that before.” Jongdae says looking genuinely confused. 

“He doesn’t seem to hate you but he certainly didn’t waste time putting distance between you.” Junmyeon mumbles quickly trying to defuse the pointedly negative tone of his boyfriend’s observation, if even just a little. 

Baekhyun’s interest levels never seemed to lower when it came to the mysterious man, and the fact that he was so heavily infected with the man’s presence in his life didn’t help his self medication of space that he so desperately tried to cure with.

Chanyeol hadn’t stayed away for long though. It took a few minutes before he returned with a glass in hand, and one glass led to another, and a bottle became two, and the friends were exchanging stories and anecdotes again like they were long time companions rather than newly blossomed company. They wind up stifled with the large crowds in the tight quarters and the alcohol picks up their body heat until Baekhyun sneaks them down the hall with a fresh bottle of Patron from the kitchen and they take a seat on the veranda together, pressing their backs to the spackle wall and breathing in the humid night’s cool breeze.

“What would you have done if i wasn’t here tonight?” Chanyeol’s words aren’t slurred but they hold a certain wistfulness that can be marked with his lack of intent or direction in conversation.

“I would probably have thrown up trying to figure out what the hell the lizard painting in the hall means.” Baekhyun replies feeling that it was only half of a lie and a very feasible option for the possible outcome even still. 

“Junmyeon’s art… I swear he only picks things that have a moral to them like he’s subconsciously educating the people who view it.”

Baekhyun laughs, nodding his head vigorously as he leans forward slightly, face red with intoxication. The night sky is not unlike any other night, dark and wide before them, nor was it any brighter because Chanyeol was at his side. Isn’t it strange then, that sitting there, Baekhyun could not place the last time he took time to even notice the sky and how bright the night could be. 

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun broaches, his laughter subsiding. “Why did she leave?”

He didn’t need to elaborate further, he could tell from the chilled silence at his side that Park knew exactly what she he was referring to. And he waited patiently for answer, even if it meant he waited forever.

“My mother left us because she thought my Father wasn’t going anywhere in his career. She left us because she said that he did nothing but bring people down… that… that he was unhappy with his mundane life doing the same thing every single day… she said that he was unhappy with the person that he became and he took it out on the world by being miserable…”

Baekhyun sneaks a peek from the corner of his eye and sees Chanyeol’s shoulders slumped forward, head up to the darkness above. Under the guise of casual concern, he turns to his friend, ready to offer a joke or alcohol in retribution but there is nothing that prepared him for the real expression of Park Chanyeol. No mask of delight to cover his pain, no pretense of adjustment to mask his betrayal this time, for the private viewing of Baekhyun, there was nothing but anguish in those tears glittering down his cheeks. 

This was the ugliest crying face that Baekhyun had ever seen and without hesitation he leans in and steals the man’s lips. Chanyeol jumps, his eyes snapping in rapid fire blinking as Baekhyun takes another sip of patron from the bottle. Instead of questioning it, or even replying to the kiss with embarrassment, Chanyeol reaches over and removes the bottle from Baekhyun’s small hands. Baekhyun allows another glance at his friend, only to find that he is looking expectantly at him. His big hand wraps around Baekhyun’s wrist and pulls him over and wordlessly, he crawls into his lap, straddling his long legs, half covered in black cargo shorts and coming in seamlessly with another kiss. There needed be no words for this exchange, because there was no need to define it, but Chanyeol’s mouth tastes like liquor and his lips are wet with salted tears. Baekhyun feels the warm breath against his lip as he nestles his nose against Chanyeol’s and they nuzzle together, sharing intoxicated gasps of air and stealing slow nips of the other’s lip. His dainty fingers travel through Chanyeol’s dark hair, feeling the sweat at the base and combing up with a sick delight in the feel of it. It’s Baekhyun that deepens the kiss, holding his lips in place for long enough for Chanyeol to reply with a tender pull of skin and a coupling of wet mouthes parting to taste the other. Chanyeol’s hold is firm as he pulls Baekhyun down against him, hard, and the squeak of delight Baekhyun makes into Chanyeol’s mouth fuels the man’s hunger. The stroke of his tongue, hot and kick astride Baekhyun’s as he pushes into his kiss leaves Baekhyun’s mind blank, unable to properly place what the hell he’s doing anymore, the only thing remaining carrying any significance being this one kiss.

“I’m drunk.” Chanyeol pants as he pulls back with a smile.

“I’m not sober either. Don’t worry.”

He scoots closer on Chanyeol’s lap and unintentionally illicit a whimper from the man who seems to take a long steadied breath to cool off. 

“You… You bring something out in me, Baekhyun.”

He strokes dark hairs from his long sideburns behind his ear and chuckles.

“Negativity? Darkness? Sadness? Tears, clearly…”

“Honesty.” Chanyeol amends with another tender press of velvet lips to Baekhyun’s mouth. 

Baekhyun doesn’t ever get warmed by cheesy lines in movies or novels. He doesn’t care about any of that but when this man looks at him earnestly and says these things, he doesn’t cringe at it, he just feels a stab of hunger to possess every once of who he is. The good, the bad, the repressed, the fake, the honest, the scared… every fractal of his personality that can be caught through the prism of his existence needs to be owned, to be touched, to be appreciated.  
He reaches down to stroke his fingers down the front of the man’s lean torso and rocks his hips purposefully over Chanyeol’s lap until the man is gasping for breath, forehead pressed into Baekhyun’s shoulder with soft moans and grunts of appreciation.

“Chanyeol…” Baekhyun whimpers sounding more desperate than he planned but the man doesn’t reject it, tightening his hold on his hips and helping to guide him. 

The glass door to the veranda slides open and for a split second, the two fail to process what that means, caught up in what they were doing together. But the shriek from Jongdae as he looks down is enough to snap them both from their passionate embrace, and probably wake his building neighbors with some alarm.

“What the hell are you two doing out here?”

Baekhyun collapses forward, hiding his face in Chanyeol’s shoulder, and shortly there after feels his big hand cradling neck with gentle strokes to soothe him in his embarrassment. He hears Chanyeol’s loud voice, strong and deep, the reverberation in his confident tone not matching the fast beat of his heart or the hard outline of his cock pressed to underside of Baekhyun’s inner thigh. He closes his eye as Jongdae teases them about their awkwardness in the kitchen earlier and their familiarity now, and slowly, he tunes it out. He focuses on Chanyeol’s soft black cotton v-neck tee and the way it smells like cologne and sweat. Smoky and earthy, it smells like a grown man and not like a university kid known for his goofy smile. His fingers travel from his crown down to the spine of his neck in a petting motion reserved for lovers, fingers skimming skin sensually with practiced movement.

“I just came out here to collect trash, are you two done? Can you try not to have an exhibitionist tryst on our veranda, please? It’s not private so, people can and probably were watching you.” Jongdae barks, his voice rich with amusement.

“Yeah, uh, we’ll come back in…”

“So, everyone else left a while ago, it’s almost 4 AM. You two might want to consider that when you sneak out of here.” He says with a wink, grabbing the nearly empty bottle of Patron and ducking back inside. 

Alone again, Baekhyun pulls himself away and meets eyes with a grinning Chanyeol. Not a fake grin, maybe a drunk grin, but this one expression Baekhyun would lock in his memory. A perfect moment without regret.

“You’re smiling.” He says and Baekhyun touches his own cheeks in surprise.

“Am I?”

“You do it so rarely, it’s certainly worth noting.”

Baekhyun kisses the man once more, afraid this could be the last time.

“I’m happy.”

 

For the first time in the two weeks they’d known one another, it’s Chanyeol who messages Baekhyun first. 24 hours after they finished recovering from hangovers that felt like reverting back in the evolutionary chain into single organisms, brain and muscles constricting like they had no place to go. 24 hours after they each processed the extent of their actions on an almost summer night in the early morning’s drunken clarity. The message simply states that he would like to meet up with him. And Baekhyun had no way to interpret what that means. So instead of laying his cards out, he plays them with a tact.

“I’m kind of busy today.” He replies.

And while he almost expects Chanyeol’s usual forgiving response, the follow up “I understand” feels hollow. 

Baekhyun’s shoulders drag him down, face first into his own comforter as he collapses under the inadequate response. Why is this so important to him? Why can’t he just brush it off as a drunken mistake the way Chanyeol seems to be doing? And at the risk of compromising their friendship, Baekhyun fires off another message.

“Do you not want to get together?”

In hind sight, it reads like mind games. Stating you’re busy and then flipping out when they say that’s fine. But he’s been playing these games since their first day and old habits are hard to break.

“I want to see you.” Chanyeol’s message reads.

No more. No less. The words cut straight to what both of them were thinking and Baekhyun hesitates not one moment more, ending the chase by making plan for the man to come over as soon as possible. And while Baekhyun pretends that he’s studying for finals while he waits, he’s actually making a pattern of the letter C over and over again like a chainlink across the bottom of the notebook and around the image bubble in his textbook. 

He leaps from his desk when the door bell rings and flies across the house, pushing doors open without closing them and unlocking the dead bolt with too much enthusiasm. Chanyeol steps inside and the two stand in complete silence as they stare the other down. Having put enough space between them they wouldn’t feel uncomfortable, Baekhyun waits patiently for whatever Chanyeol came over to say. His frown and furrowed brow as he looks Baekhyun over are especially hard to stomach, and he feels suddenly queasy at the idea that maybe he read into the wrong idea in the texts. Chanyeol drops his green backpack and slips off his shoes, stepping up into Baekhyun’s apartment and closing the space between them. He reaches forward, eyes flickering over Baekhyun’s face to read his expression and and tucks his fingers into the chestnut brown hair behind his ears, cradling his face in his hands and bends to kiss him.

Baekhyun’s temperature rises, his heart a catapult of emotional overflow as he melts his lips into a warm kiss being pushed, guided gently back against the wall and seduced by the tall actor.

When they break their flower petal kisses, Chanyeol gives them room to grab hold of fresh breath and gives Baekhyun an incredulous look.

“What’s wrong, Chanyeol?” He whispers, still nervous he could break this spell at any moment.

“I feel like I can breathe around you.”

“Funny, I’m feeling a little breathless myself.” Baekhyun replies with a lightening of tension between them and small tug of Chanyeol’s dimpled cheek. 

“Baekhyun… why do you care if I fake smiles for people? Why does that bother you?”

He reaches up to the man’s lips and traces the thin lines with a starry expression.

“I guess I was just curious on some level… what it would be like to see you smile because you’re actually happy for once…”

Chanyeol looks completely out of place in Baekhyun’s studio apartment. The walls are none too aesthetically littered with taped posters and sticky notes, memories in the form of receipts that no longer hold a story and photos of people he only vaguely remembers. The mess of books stacked on his desk, the coffee table, the floor by his bed, and the side table are inspected by Chanyeol with his expression hard and serious. And coming upon the copy of Much Ado About Nothing with all of Claudio’s lines highlighted and notes not he margins of meanings and translations brings his gaze up to Baekhyun’s with a slow cooked amusement that few would ever see in person. He makes his way through the shelves of comics and points to family photos with some interest and Baekhyun gently offers details about his life, careful not to upset Chanyeol with talk about his Mother. The two remain in silence after that while Chanyeol reads the spines of books and looks around the space so uniquely Baekhyun that he almost felt like he was seeing a side of the man that nobody else ever had. 

“Have you ever seen Pulp Fiction?”

Chanyeol narrows his eyes.

“The gorey star-studded cult classic by Tarantino?”

“That’s the one!” Baekhyun sings happily, excited despite himself when Chanyeol takes a seat next to him.

“Do you remember what Uma Thurman said to John Travolta about comfortable silences?”

Chanyeol gives one of his trade mark pauses that drive Baekhyun mad, a hold in time wondering what’s going on in that head of his. 

“Yeah. Something about finding someone special?”

“Yeah. She says that you know you’ve found someone special when you don’t have to fill every silence with bs, when you finally find someone you can just shut up with.” Baekhyun inches closer to Chanyeol with an expectant expression.  
“Well that’s not you, because you seem to fill every one of our silences with something to say.” He teases, grabbing Baekhyun’s ear and tugging at the skin lightly.

“Which is ironic, because I’m usually good with long silences except when I’m around you.”

“I’m usually good at filling silences, except when I’m around you.” Chanyeol says so quietly, his lips barely moved.  
They let the space between their bodies thicken with a rise in their chemistry, a tension nearly palpable between them as they both make up their minds about what they want to do to the other in the following moments. What lines they can cross physically when their knowledge of the other intimately still seemed too thin.

“I like you.” Chanyeol admits, his eyes stroking over Baekhyun’s features with his affection.

“I like you, too.”

 

Junmyeon sips at his hot tea with tumultuous eyes, a storm brews in the darkness of his gaze but his perfect complexion and fair features hold a polite awareness of their very public location.

“Is it his grades again? Please ease up on him. He’s been petrified of your response all semester.” Baekhyun offers in place of admitting that he eaves dropped on their private conversation at their party. 

“No, it’s his family situation. It’s not really a big deal anymore, divorce I mean. It happens pretty frequently, but I understand it’s hard for everyone.”

Baekhyun leans on his elbows and looks at Junmyeon seriously, gaze met with a slight lift of his cupped chin.

“Do you really think that what’s eating up your boyfriend is that he’s not adjusted enough to handle a trauma like his parents splitting up after he’s fully grown up?”

Junmyeon averts his gaze eyes and focusses on the empty table next to them, features hard.

“Park came over at 3 AM to drive Jongdae to his family’s country house 2 hours away the night he found out. I offered to go with him, and he said no. He didn’t want me to come.”

Baekhyun was still hung up on the fact that Chanyeol was wrapped up in this but he tried not to let it show outwardly that his mind was temporarily distracted with a hundred snap shots of making out with Chanyeol. 

“There might be a reason for that, don’t you think?” He offers, clearing his throat to bring Junmyeon back to earth.

“I don’t kno—“

“Don’t play dumb like you’re not the smartest out of all of us. He’s scared. He cares about you more than he has ever cared about any of the other people he’s ever dated. And you’re the only man he’s ever dated on top of that. Over all, I would say he’s adjusted to being gay pretty seamlessly. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have things he’s scared of…”

Junmyeon nods curtly, acknowledging the proposition with grace.

“Yes, it’s crossed my mind. But I can’t make him believe we’re going to make it. That’s something he has to do on his own. He has to trust in me and trust in what we have.”

Baekhyun notes the nervousness in the man’s pretense of composure. The way he bites the inside of his mouth, strokes the rim of the coffee mug, and lets his focus slip in and out on objects. 

“It’s just not easy to do that, is it?” He asks and Baekhyun shrugs his shoulders, unable to properly sympathize with the sentiment. 

He pulls his phone out and messages Chanyeol asking him what’s on his mind. The reflexive response “You” comes faster than he’s expecting and he feels himself inflate with giddiness in a way that he makes not to be sick about later.

“Look at that expression, let me guess, it’s Park?”

Baekhyun shimmies his shoulders in a dance in place of an answer, leaving his friend to be disgusted for him. He reaches across the table and picks up the heavily tatted Much Ado About Nothing book and flips through it.

“I heard about you two on the veranda.” 

“What about your veranda?”

Junmyeon gives an uncharacteristically long sigh of exasperation and the two give a soft exchange of laughter.

“Park is a good guy. He’s really stand up, and he might come off as a little too…you know… well, bright and sunny sometimes, but he’s got a lot to be happy about these days. He wasn’t always like this. When we first met back in high school, he was just starting to come out of his shell. He finally was able to join the drama club and things with his Dad were less intense. He’s just… I hope you really like him because he doesn’t do this kind of thing with just anyone. I don’t know if it’s just you or if he’s been with other men, but… either way, he’s kept his love life pretty low key.”

“Maybe that’s because he has a secret kinky sex dungeon.” Baekhyun says completely unironically and for one terrifying heart beat, Junmyeon looks like he’s killed something precious and sweet. “Kidding.”

There would probably have been some strong words to chastise Baekhyun were it not for the shadow suddenly cast over the table. Baekhyun looks up at the man and feels the pitting in his stomach return. 

“Yixing, how are you?”

The man looks slightly hurt but patient and they excuse themselves to talk.

“You haven’t replied to my messages in a week.” He says without pleasantries when they’re alone.

“I know, and that was wrong of me—“

“I know you’re not interested in me, I get that. But I thought we could be friends at least.” He presses on and Baekhyun reaches to scratch behind his ear uncomfortably.

“I found somebody, Yixing. I didn’t mean to ignore you, it’s just that… I really like this person. My whole word is consumed and that’s not healthy. This isn’t healthy, I know, but I can’t stop it. I’m obsessed and I want to know about him and spend time with him. And when we do things together, even if it’s not a date, I imagine it’s a date. And that made me feel guilty towards you and…”

Yixing nods his head slowly, a certain sadness in those gentle eyes like he was looking at something rare and beautiful.

“I feel like I’m seeing you for the first time. Baekhyun…” Yixing clasps a hand on his shoulder. “I’m happy for you. But we can still be friends right?”

And in that moment, Baekhyun felt himself pulling out a fake smile, soft and considerate.

“Yeah, Yixing, friends.”

 

Their dinner was left cooling on the kitchen table where Baekhyun’s cat was shedding and nibbling on the microwave meals. Stripped of shirts and halfway pulled free of their light summer denims, Chanyeol and Baekhyun spent much of the evening in a tangle of arms and legs. There were hicks placed on purpose, yellowing on Baekhyun’s chest and scratches on Chanyeol’s back from Baekhyun’s sharp little nails. The panted breathing fogging moisture onto Chanyeol’s forearm was suffocating, but he felt an irrational need to cover his face to hide the reaction Baekhyun’s mouth was having on him. His beautifully crafted, dainty fingers cup the base of his cock, rolling his skin against his palm and up to the base of his thick, slick shaft. The sounds that may have even seemed amusing before were precious and dear to him as the man took his length into the heat of his mouth and hollowed his flushed cheeks. Baekhyun’s tongue snakes up the underside in a soft stroke while his breathing through his nostrils kept him pulling back over and over and coming back down, deeper and deeper. 

“Baekhyun—“ But he couldn’t quite get his whole name out as his hips lift and his legs jerk beneath the petite man’s lithe frame, head bobbing in sync to the delicious slurps of his perfected technique. Chanyeol’s hand comes down suddenly into Baekhyun’s hair and Baekhyun’s eyes crinkle in place of a knowing smile. His fingers massage the back of his head as he guides Baekhyun down on his cock, the leaking head silken as Baekhyun fights to pull away just because he enjoys the tortured look on Chanyeol’s face.

“Baekhyun—“   
His head goes back down, looking up at Chanyeol from beneath hooded lashes as he slowly swipes his tongue up the hard length and fists his warm member with a few loose strokes down. He takes the head into his mouth against first, sucking the sensitive tip in a way that he thought must be painful with slight amusement before finishing him off with careful lolls of his head to either side. Chanyeol’s fist comes against the wall with a slam as he cums, filling Baekhyun’s mouth with the bitter sweet satisfaction of a job well done.

“Are you okay?” Baekhyun asks worriedly, swallowing quickly and wiping at the corners of his lips.

“Yeah.. Yeah, I’m… I’m fine. I’m great. I’m fine.”

“No, seriously, stop smiling. Is your hand okay?” Baekhyun crawls over his torso to reach for Chanyeol’s hand.

“My hand is fine, look, works fine.” He says opening and closing his palm.

“Chanyeol. I’m not asking if it works. I’m asking it it’s hurt. I heard that thing hit the wall. It was no joke.”

“Baekhyun, I’m not going to say it again,” Chanyeol growls, letting his voice take on a sight more irritable tone. “Forget my hand, it’s fine.”

Baekhyun pushes away from Chanyeol and gets to his feet.

“You’re being fake. Why can’t you just admit it hurts?”

Chanyeol sits up and grabs the pillow from the bed and hurls it gently at Baekhyun.

“Quit it. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Oh, I’m ridiculous? You’re the one who’s fake but I’m ridiculous. Okay. That makes sense.” He growls and throws the pillow back.

“Stop! You don’t know me like you think you know me! I’m not always fake, Baekhyun.”

“Well I know when you’re faking not being in pain, when you’re faking happiness.”

Chanyeol gets to his feet and stamps his food.

“Byun Baekhyun. I am being sincere. This—“ He points to himself and then to Baekhyun. “Is not fake to me. Nothing about this is fake for me. Not my smiles, not the kissing, not I how I feel, and not me saying that hitting my hand doesn’t hurt when my boyfriend gives me head! Now cut it out!”

He reached down to grab his white denims up off the floor and puts them on, grabbing the grey teeshirt from the other side of the bed where it was tossed off in a flurry of feverish kissing. 

“Figure out what it is you need from me, Byun. But I can’t keep doing this. You play these games with my head and you know I can’t resist you.”

He gets to his feet and adjusts his shirt tail. He leans in to press his lips to Baekhyun’s forehead and looks down at him with his assured silence.

“Chanyeol, I…”

“Think about it.” He replies when Baekhyun fails to provide words. 

With the lingering scent of the man on his skin and in his bed, Baekhyun crashes into the soft comforter, wallowing in his regret.

Chanyeol had just called him his boyfriend, as matter-of-factly as that. And maybe the man was right, maybe Chanyeol isn’t the one who’s broken. Maybe it’s Baekhyun that needs to be put back together. Chanyeol may be wounded by his mother throwing him and his father away, but it’s Baekhyun who is trying to change Chanyeol and judge his defensive coping techniques. Feeling more rotten with every passing moment, Baekhyun lets the darkness of his room consume him and chill his skin without blanket.

Suddenly Junmyeon’s words carried so much more weight. He can’t make Jongdae believe in him, or believe in what they have… What do Baekhyun and Chanyeol have…? Is this something that could be real too? 

 

It was shortly after their last exam that Jongdae announced that he would be going back to the countryside to stay with his parents over summer break. 

“Expect a crisp tan when I come back, i’m going to look like Beyonce.” 

Baekhyun snorts laughter with a dramatic shake of his head.

“No way, she’s got a body worth dying over, all curves in all the right places. I’d go straight for a night with a woman like that!”

Jongdae gives a resentful scoff but they both silently agree that he was probably right. 

“How are things with Junmyeon?” Baekhyun asks, cautious to gage his reaction and try to cheer him up accordingly.

“He’s fine. He was nervous at first, thinking I was trying to break up with him. But you know I can’t got an entire summer without sex. I gave him a train ticket down to stay with me if he wanted so he’s trying to reschedule some of his summer tutoring sessions to other part time teachers. 

“So you two are square?” Baekhyun asks.

“No, we’re anything but square. We’re a mess. I color outside of the lines all the time, I always break the molds that should be universal but for my grades situation? Yeah. Of course me making more than one C is going to make him irritable, but that’s because he loves me. Sometimes love means looking at things from another perspective and trying to accommodate their views too.”

Baekhyun’s phone had been silent since Chanyeol left and any time he snuck to the cafeteria to look for the tall man, he found that the happy virus was nowhere to be found. And he didn’t know whether to start with “I miss you” or “I’m sorry”. Because he was so sorry but he didn’t want Chanyeol to think that he was saying that he couldn’t be with him.   
“I want to be with you.” Seemed to sum up the gist of it, but Baekhyun wasn’t sure about what to say. 

“Judging from that angsty expression like you’re starring in a high school tv drama, I’m guessing you haven’t made up with Park yet?” Jongdae says with a gentle pat to his shoulder.

Baekhyun shakes his head no and they keep walking together.

“Should I offer to buy you macarons and tea like you do with me when i’m down?” He asks with a soft smile turning up the corners of his big smile.

“No, but I could definitely use some happy virus right about now.” Baekhyun mumbles.

“I thought you didn’t like the happy virus?”

Baekhyun stops walking and looks up, face to face with Chanyeol for the first time in a week, though it felt dramatically longer, arguably, months so.

“I made much ado about nothing. You were fine the way your are… I’m sorry.” Baekhyun’s voice cracks slightly but the tall summer ready man in his blue sleeveless shirt and beach cargos doesn’t make move to ease away any tension. 

“You weren’t wrong, you know.” Chanyeol says, fisting his hands on both hips. “I was afraid I’d end up like my Dad, afraid my Mother’s rejection of him was a rejection of me too. I tried to be the opposite of my dad, always forcing a smile and living out as many lives as I could so I wouldn’t feel trapped and be miserable like him. But I saw my Dad this weekend, and guess what?”

Baekhyun was slightly confused but shrugged his shoulders in reply.

“There’s nothing wrong with my Dad. He’s a great guy, Baekhyun. He’s funny and interesting and kind. And there is nothing wrong with who he is. She may have gone off to find someone better, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t blind to what she already had.”

Baekhyun steps instinctively forward.

“I was blind, Chanyeol. Please forgive me. I had you and I let you slip away… Chanyeol, please don’t be mad, I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.”

And though he wasn’t sure quite what else he expected in response, Chanyeol gives him a smile and opens up his arms.

“I don’t hate you. I’ve been crazy about you since the first time I saw you at Jongdae’s party last year. I thought you hated me, always glaring at me when you caught me staring at you. I thought you were trying to mess with me because you knew I liked you, you spazz.”

Baekhyun’s mind filters through a thousand moments of looking up at Chanyeol, the glances from the stage, across the cafeteria, in the coffee shop… He staggers forward, his face feeling hot again as he buries his nose in the man’s chest and hold him close.

“I’ll try to be more forthcoming with how I feel.” Chanyeol promises and presses a kiss to the man’s crown.

Baekhyun breathes in cologne and sweat, summertime musk on the man he’s in love with.

“I promise, I’ll make you the happiest man on earth.”

Chanyeol’s laughter and pink cheeks leave Baekhyun looking up confused, not having meant any of that as a joke. And though Baekhyun begged him to tell him why he was laughing, Chanyeol kept avoiding the answer with clever twists of conversation. He wasn’t ready to admit that he’d never known how happy a person could really be until this little negative man came into his life and infected him with his own brand of Chanyeol happy virus. 

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave your review on LiveJournal. ♥


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